Nasty, Nasty Gossip and Other Stuff That's Bad for You

Monday, August 11, 2008

OK -- totally random, I know. But have you seen this movie? I think it's pretty much my favorite film of the last ten years. (And yes, I fully admit to crushing on the beauteous, then-20-year-old Michael Pitt like the pervy, thirtysomething, married-mother-of-two that I am. I mean, hello! Don't worry, though -- I'm over him now.)

Anyway, you should rent it sometime. (But only, you know, if you like kind of weird but totally great, hilarious and yet heartbreaking indie musicals about "internationally ignored" East German transsexual song stylists and the hot young ex-lovers who wronged them, and that came out like seven years ago.) Amazing soundtrack, too.

LOVE the movie! LOVE the soundtrack! I got to see a live production of Hedwig in Philly and it was INCREDIBLE! My husband had the lucky Sugardaddy "carwash" seat. Haha! Wish I had a video camera for that one!

We saw the stage show in San Francisco. It was great fun, but I still love the movie best -- it just has more emotional complexity, and I think it's incredibly creative visually, esp. for a first-time filmmaker. Anyway, the original stage show with John Cameron Mitchell was playing in NYC when we lived there, and we're still kicking ourselves for not seeing it.

Speaking of JCM, we briefly met him at an event in SF when the live production opened there. He yakked on his cell phone the entire time, and barely looked up to acknowledge all the folks who'd lined up to say hello, which bummed me out a little bit. But Stephen Trask, who wrote all the music for Hedwig and played one of her bandmates, was super-sweet.

(BTW: We watched the movie ten thousand times with our kids when they were really little -- it was like a Friday night ritual to order pizza and dance around the house to the strains of "Wig in a Box" -- and I cannot tell you how confused they were that day when they finally realized that Hedwig was actually a man. And yes, I'm sure they'll have lots to talk about with their shrinks in a few years ... )

Speaking of JCM, have any of you seen his follow-up, "Shortbus"? I absolutely HATED that movie -- and not because of the "actors actually having sex on camera" gimmick, but just because it was so incredibly, laughably bad. We turned it off after about half an hour ...